This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event March 5, 2002: Israeli Spies Reportedly Tracked 9/11 Hijackers. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.

Ali al-Jarrah. [Source: Lebanese Military/Public Domain]Starting in 1983, a Lebanese man named Ali al-Jarrah, cousin of 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah, allegedly works as a spy for the Israeli government. Living in rural Lebanon as a school administrator, it is claimed he also is a valued spy, sending reports and taking clandestine photos of Palestinians and Hezbollah in Syria and south Lebanon, near the Israeli border. He is said to have been paid at least $300,000 over the years by Israel. Ali’s brother Yusuf al-Jarrah is said to have helped him spy, but few details of his case have been reported. Ali and Yusuf will be arrested by Hezbollah in July 2008 and then handed to the Lebanese military for trial by a military court. Ali will allegedly confess, but his wife will claim he has been tortured. He is also suspected of involvement in the assassination of Imad Mugniyah, a Hezbollah commander killed in Damascus in February 2008. Cases of such prolonged and involved spying have been very rare in Lebanon, and news of his arrest is said to have shocked the country. Ali and Ziad Jarrah were “20 years apart in age and do not appear to have known each other well.” [Jerusalem Post, 11/3/2008; London Times, 11/9/2008; Independent, 11/13/2008; New York Times, 2/19/2009] Curiously, Ziad Jarrah had another relative who has been accused of spying for three governments since the 1980s (see September 16, 2002).

States the Israeli spy ring were known to have operated in, according to a June 2001 Drug Enforcement Administration report (this Fox news graphic was based on information from that report). [Source: Fox News]The DEA’s Office of Security Programs prepares a 60-page internal memo on the Israeli “art student spy ring.” [Drug Enforcement Agency, 6/2001] The Memo is a compilation of dozens of field reports, and was meant only for the eyes of senior officials at the Justice Department (of which the DEA is adjunct), but it is leaked to the press around December 2001. The report connects the spies to efforts to foil investigations into Israeli organized crime activity involving the importation of the drug Ecstasy. The spies also appear to be snooping on top-secret military bases. For instance, on April 30, 2001, an Air Force alert was issued from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City concerning “possible intelligence collection being conducted by Israeli art students.” Tinker AFB houses AWACS surveillance craft and Stealth bombers. By the time of the report, the US has “apprehended or expelled close to 120 Israeli nationals” but many remain at large. [Le Monde (Paris), 3/5/2002; Salon, 5/7/2002] An additional 20 or so Israeli spies are apprehended between June and 9/11. [Fox News, 12/12/2001]

According to German newspapers, the Mossad gives the CIA a list of 19 terrorists living in the US and say that they appear to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. It is unknown if these are the 19 9/11 hijackers or if the number is a coincidence. However, four names on the list are known, and these four will be 9/11 hijackers: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta. [Die Zeit (Hamburg), 10/1/2002; Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 10/1/2002; BBC, 10/2/2002; Ha'aretz, 10/3/2002] The Mossad appears to have learned about this through its “art student spy ring.” Yet apparently, this warning and list are not treated as particularly urgent by the CIA and the information is not passed on to the FBI. It is unclear whether this warning influenced the decision to add Alhazmi and Almihdhar to a terrorism watch list on this same day, and if so, why only those two. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 10/1/2002] Israel has denied that there were any Mossad agents in the US. [Ha'aretz, 10/3/2002]

It is reported that many spies in the uncovered Israeli spy ring seemed to have been trailing the 9/11 hijackers. At the very least, they were in close proximity. For instance, five Israeli spies are intercepted in the tiny town of Hollywood, Florida, and four 9/11 hijackers are known to have spent time in Hollywood, Florida. [Le Monde (Paris), 3/5/2002; Reuters, 3/5/2002; Jane's Intelligence Digest, 3/15/2002] In one case, some Israeli spies lived at 4220 Sheridan Street, only a few hundred feet from where Mohamed Atta was living at 3389 Sheridan Street. Israeli spies appear to have been close to at least ten of the 19 9/11 hijackers. [Salon, 5/7/2002]

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